Always love a note from Catherine Bohne, owner of the Community Bookstore and the Vice President of the Park Slope Chamber of Commerce. Of course, the Community Bookstore is going a little bit overboard in their celebration of the Fair. They got a tent and everything.

Catherine here, writing with two hats on (picture it as an Ottoman sort of thing, hat-wise, I mean, not so much like a hassock). The less concrete hat is as the Vice President of Park Slope’s Chamber of Commerce (yes, boys and girls, in a stunning twist of fate, the Bookstore has gone, in one small year (thanks to you), from being an almost dead duck, to a thriving representative of local commerce, with me as VeePee at the semi-helm!) Ahem (a-helm!).

As VeePee, I’m asking you to come down and check out the Seventh Heaven Street Fair this weekend. The hither-to semi-defunct Park Slope Chamber of Commerce has woken up, been reinvigorated, and immediately began twisting local merchants’ arms, and asking them to take part (Trust us! It Will be Great!), so that Local Businesses are turning out in unprecedented numbers. It’s a start, to turning the annual Street Fair back to being a Local Celebration. Something like 80 local merchants are going to be strutting their stuff en plein air on that day, and I’d urge you to visit them, in addition to the (of course delectable) ubiquitous sausage and sock merchants.

Most of the good restaurants (where you sometimes can’t get a reservation) will be dishing it up, and out. There’s a Crafter’s Alley at the South End of the Slope, with over 30 local artisans selling their stuff (we never did that before!). Between 3rd and 4th is Do-Gooder’s Alley, with all the local Civic Organizations turning out, in addition to representatives from other important concerns (if nothing else – VOTER REGISTRATION! ) If you want to come and do your thing – Please DO! Wandering Minstrels and Spontaneous Dog Parades are welcome, and positively, downright encouraged. Let’s make it an Avenue-Long Block Party! And as for the Bookstore, what are we doing? (Here comes the concrete hat, which is almost certainly better than concrete shoes!!!)

Ah yes . . . . well . . . . See, once we decided to take part, we went a little overboard . . . . Anyhow, we’ve got this Tent. And given that, we’re going to take the indoors out. We’ll have this tent of more-than-oriental- splendor (that’s a Kipling reference, for those of you who are feeling sleepy), and we’re going to fill it with oriental carpets, sofas, a burbling fountain, peacock feathers, confetti cannons, a star turn by Mrs. De Ropp (our Hamster, and can you name the literary reference?) and . . . . Children’s books. We’ve gotten in boxes and boxes of wonderful books by local authors, and have half a dozen of them, the authors and illustrators themselves ((including but-not-limited- to : David Ezra Stein, Melanie Hope Greenberg, Marilyn Singer, Robert Weinstock and Nina Crews!, and maybe more, who knows?) turning up to sign stock read aloud, or, who knows, just fire off the cannon. Personally, I envisage vats of Sangria, too.

Please come by, and bounce your Little Genius off our cushions. Stand by, at full attention, for the hourly firing of the ceremonial big (confetti) gun. And wallow in the pleasure of all the fun of childhood, of pictures, and games and dreams. Or, if all this is too much for you, you can always grab a peacock feather, and head to the garden, where there are almost certain to be fellow shiverers, sopping up the jam juice, and telling stories, keeping out of the way.

In any case, we urge and invite you to join us. The neighborhood’ s venturing out of doors! Anything (cripey!) might happen!